Fragments of dreams
by loosingletters
Summary: Fragment (noun), plural noun: fragments - fraɡm(ə)nt/. "A small part broken off or separated from something. 'Small fragments of pottery.'" Synonyms: piece, bit, particle, speck. Side stories to Let the dead crown him! Because childhood is too long for a few thousand words, bonds too deep for a few chapters and sometimes you just have to show these discarded but precious fragments.


**Side stories to my fanfiction** ** _Let the dead crown him_** **!**

 **Because I have no self control and keep getting ideas for this AU that don't fit into the main story. Therefore deleted scenes or additional extra scenes/completely written One Shots will go here! Additional warnings will be put at the start of each chapter. Not beta read.**

 **Please take this as a Christmas present/apology for not updating the main story!**

 **Chapter summary: Ace wondered about those books Luffy had brought with him.**  
 **Timeline: Set in chapter 2 of Ltdch before Luffy reveals his Devil Fruit powers.**

 ** _"_** ** _We learn best when we learn together." - Seth Godin_**

Learning, while necessary, was hard and without a good teacher it could be the most horrible task in existence. Spending hours, days, ages concentrating on just one subject was tedious and tiring. Therefore the best way to learn was in good company, with a guide to go to for help and the will to learn strong.

Ace had been quite surprised about the huge amount of books Luffy had brought with him to the bandits. Not to mention how quickly the collection grew as Makino brought Luffy new ones almost every time she visited. He knew the younger boy despised reading as it required sitting still for a long period of time, a skill Ace had believed Luffy to be unable of performing. Luffy was always jumping around like a monkey from the moment on he woke up until the moment he fell asleep, patience wasn't part of the boy's nature.

So, despite witnessing Luffy sitting down to read every Sunday, Ace found himself thinking that Luffy might as well was just pretending to read to make Makino proud of him. She did compliment him whenever he told her that he had read through another chapter of a book. And with that Ace believed he had solved the mystery. He wasn't going to rat Luffy out over something so silly. If the boy wanted to pretend to be reading, Ace would leave him. It gave Sabo and him a chance to go to the parts of the jungle they couldn't take Luffy to, or go after the animals too strong for the youngest.

So every time Sunday came around, Luffy sat down with a book and Ace went out with Sabo. They left around noon while Luffy stayed behind at the bandits' hideout, appearing to be busy with his books. When they returned a few hours later they usually found Luffy playing around or coloring, his book abandoned.

But one Sunday Sabo wasn't feeling too well. He had gotten hit pretty badly on their last trip through the jungle. It was nothing they hadn't encountered before, but regardless they didn't want to risk it by going hunting with a dizzy Sabo.

While the blonde slept and Luffy pretended to read, Ace was suddenly overcome with boredom. Usually there was always something to do for him, but now that he was used to company and never having a quiet minute, he felt a little lost. He could go and hack some wood or clean, his childhood home could use it, but he didn't want to. These lazy adults should do it themselves, not to mention that those weren't the most exciting tasks to do too. Hunting alone had become very boring without the needing look out for Luffy or building a – in his opinion - completely unnecessarily overly complicated trap together with Sabo.

Recognizing that there was nothing fun to do, Ace sat down next to Luffy and also grabbed a book from the pile. Maybe there was a fun adventure book or something in there. Ace had learnt reading through newspapers and those certainly weren't the most interesting for a child.

 _Deathly diseases of East Blue_ was the title of the book Ace had taken. Not the kind of book he had expected Luffy to have but he guessed it wasn't too bad of a book to read. At least the title gave off the impression that it was filled with useful information and learning about sicknesses that could kill him seemed like a good idea. Ace was pretty sure that if there was a sickness he could actually get it was a deadly one. He had never fallen victim to anything as banal as a cold or so. He only faintly remembered the one time had had actually been sick in the past ten years. He had been around five and sick with the Brown Stone fever. The sickness had rendered him bedridden for three months and he was sure that Garp had even stayed a whole month with him back then. Thinking about the man's bedside manner made the boy shudder. He certainly didn't want to ever get that sick again that the old man came.

Ace opened the book on the first page and started to read, but he came to a halt just after a few sentences. He understood what was written there only if he concentrated really hard and even then he was getting confused by some words!

What the hell was the _Plexus solaris_? And what made it so important that somebody would want to write ten pages of the effects it suffered if somebody had the Roll Woohl disease?! And how come _Luffy_ of all people was reading books like this?

"Hey, Luffy," he spoke up but the boy didn't react. "Luffy!" He repeated, louder this time.

"Huh?"

The boy looked up from his book with a confused expression on his face. Ace caught a glimpse of the page the other boy was on right now. That book was just as complicated as the one Ace had read!

"Do you understand anything of what is written there?"

"Not so much!" Luffy laughed.

"Then why are you reading it?! Try something simpler!" Ace shouted.

"But Benn and Makino told me to read it", Luffy answered as if that would explain everything. Luffy tended to forget that all the people he knew, Ace most likely didn't. The count of people Ace knew was somewhere below 30. Twenty bandits, Luffy and Sabo, Garp, Makino, the major of Foosha... That made twenty-five. Twenty-five people in total Ace knew and had interacted with. Luffy probably knew about four times as much, maybe even more! Ace had no idea how big alone Luffy's _beloved_ Shanks' crew was and then the people out of his home village had to be added to the count too.

So all in all Ace had no idea who this Benn person was supposed to be and what he had to do with all of this.

"And who's that again?" He asked, tried to keep the annoyed edge of his voice to a minimum.

"Shanks' first mate! He told me to read up on anatomy and the various ways people can die because- eh- uh—because it's important! If I set sail without knowing about stuff like this it could get really bad!"

Luffy didn't exactly look like he was lying but he wasn't exactly truthful either. For a moment Ace thought of trying to get the secret out of Luffy but he decided against it. He wouldn't push his friend.

"These books belonged to Makino's dad though," Luffy spoke up again. "I really don't get most of what stands here when I read it all alone but I really want Benn and Makino to be proud of me so I'll read and read until I get it!"

That could only work to some degree, Ace was sure. There was no way Luffy could learn off these books on his own, he probably wasn't even as literate as Ace.

"How about we read together?" Ace suggested. "I'm sure you'll understand more then. And Sabo's great at reading. He probably already knows some of this doctor stuff here too."

Luffy looked up to Ace, his brown eyes shining brighter than humanly possible. The boy seemed to literally glow at the prospect of gaining the help of the older boys.

"You mean it?"

"Yep," Ace replied and was immediately tackled and pulled into a hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Yeah, yeah, no problem," Ace answered, trying to play it cool. Nevertheless he failed miserably as his cheeks reddened and his chest tightened at the prospect of being able to help his friend.

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **Here you have the explanation why Luffy reads - because he wants to make The Cool Adults™ proud of him. Benn and Makino thought it would be smart if he read up or at least _tried_ to read about things that can get you killed. For one because it's general good to know and because they believed it would be smart if Luffy knew a bit since he sees all these dead people. So yeah.**

 **I'd love to hear what you think!**


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